Chess Originated In Africa

@ Eberulf: I get so tired of these trite arguments about Africa vs. Mediterranean culture, or maybe Arab. I give up I'll give you Egypt in exchange for California, because obviously the culture there is so different from that of the rest of N. America that it should be considered part of Mexico.

I mean let's look at it. Most, if not all of the place names are Spanish/Arabic. The majority of the people are of Mexican descent. The flora, fauna and foods all speak to a Spanish heritage. All the original founders were Spanish. It's obvious then, that California belongs to Mexico including it's name, which by the way, is Arabic for a land ruled by "Black Amazons."

So, you can have Egypt Eberulf, if you're willing to give up California.

@ Eberulf: I get so tired of these trite arguments about Africa vs. Mediterranean culture, or maybe Arab. I give up I'll give you Egypt in exchange for California, because obviously the culture there is so different from that of the rest of N. America that it should be considered part of Mexico.

I mean let's look at it. Most, if not all of the place names are Spanish/Arabic. The majority of the people are of Mexican descent. The flora, fauna and foods all speak to a Spanish heritage. All the original founders were Spanish. It's obvious then, that California belongs to Mexico including it's name, which by the way, is Arabic for a land ruled by "Black Amazons."

So, you can have Egypt Eberulf, if you're willing to give up California.

Nope, the majority of Californians are not of "Mexican" descent. Even in L.A the hispanic community still makes up less than 50% (just about). Talk about somewhere like Miami on the other hand and you may have an argument...a flawed argument

Wow!!! Did that guy say Egypt is not part of Africa?!!! He proves the point that the world has been lied to for so long they believe anything associated with people of color that indicates greatness is false. Africa gave the world literature, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, religious systems, iron hi smelting, criminal courts, ship building, irrigation, the domestication of animals...I can go on but you get the point. With all these accomplishments

(Many claimed by Europeans who. came to AFRICA to get the best education on the planet, stole AFRICAN

KNOWLEDGE and later claimed it as their own) People of all nationalities even Americans who are of African descent have been brain washed to believe the land of their ancestors produced an inferior people with inferior abilities. This brainwashing was necessary to cover their shame and to control a mighty and righteous people.

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D. says, ... "But Western literature admits that the origin of Chess is uncertain. Whenever such a statement is made, experience has taught me that the uncertainty most likely indicates it originated in Africa." ... Such reasoning fails to make the argument, and the forum becomes bogus. Perhaps the good doctor could refer to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Chess orhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess and to the external links and references also found there.

Geography isn't entirely physical: Egypt did have more in common with its coastal neighbors than with the continent, moreso in ancient times. But that isn't some racist view of superiority, the major black African empires, particularly the Nubians, fared well in wars with Egypt and had many similar advances in culture, without the building fetish. In fact, Ramses III lost most of his encounters with both black Africans and the Hittites, or did no more than force a truce at huge cost, but he got to record the battles on the walls of tombs and monuments and told a rather different story of his heroic victories which survived for centuries.

But just because the culture of sub-Saharan Africa has often been neglected or dismissed in many cases does NOT justify the silly attempts to insist that ALL advancements orginated there.

What literature comes from Africa? What great novels, epic, poems, come from that continent. Certainly there were great cultures, but nothing approaches the vast wealth of words that came fron Greece, Rome, Babylon, Persia, China, and many other cultures.

You might point to Egypt, with a long tradition of their myths. But to say Egypt is Africa, is misleading. Egypt is at the cross roads with Rome, Greece, Babylon, and Persia.

But saying what happened in Egypt is what happened in Africa, is like saying there were widespread canals and popes all over Europe since Venice and the papal states had them.

I am not sure what you mean by religious systems. Surely there are many religions and religious sects in the world, but to state there all originiated in Africa is again misleading, quite possibly a lie.

And come on, criminal courts?? Every culture has its own judicial system. To state our Western civilization concepts come directly from Africa is another lie. We got them from the Romans, the Reformation, and while you might also claim the Iroquis, you cannot claim them to be from Africa.

You might claim Africa is the start of all human beings and therefor of all civilation concepts, but you would be wrong on both accounts. Modern anthropology now suggests that human beings may have originated in more than one place. And it does not logically follow that a species birth place must be neccessarily be the place where abstract ideas and culture are born or cultivated.

"History is the science of the fool" said one man. Ancient Africans used slave labour just as much as the Chinese emperors, and Roman Kingdom and the American agricultural capitalists... whether ancient Egyptian labor was coerced or not depends on interpretation. The Pharoah was also a god so maybe the so some of the labor could have been religious fanatics. However I am sure whips were used on the many imported slaves who worshipped Yahweh and other gods.

I am skeptical of purist ideas from any culture. Men with power dominate men without power and that is the only truth.

Chess was the game of Indian Kings and nobles as far as Western history is concerned, but who knows where it originated from...

The term sub-saharan Africa is a recent concept of simplifying the Arabic north and the non-Arabic south. Truth is civilization flowed along the Nile from the mediterranean to Sudan from 5000BC onwards... the ancient Pyramids built by the Nubians in Sudan are almost forgotten, they do contain amazing hyrogliphics writing and are amazing. There is a Linguist called Phillip Ochieng who uses language to trace ancient Egyptian links all the way to East Africa.

However the Western historians could not fathom that these sub-human primitives could have had ties to any civilization. So they had to weave some myth about Egypt being some mediterranean desert island (and thus European)... a major leap in cultural annexation. The desert is a major barrier but the Nile is a major highway and many great towns and centres were built along its course deep into Africa.

Human civlizations and its respective developments have clearly followed a time line, a progression in time and space. Obviously, some of us are completely oblivious to what those timelines mean. Talk about living in a vaccum. Which one is a truer chicken? the egg or the chicken? ... May the best win this debate.

Obviously, the chiken is the truer chicken. It has chicken right in it's name!

You insult my intelligence with such a simple question! What in the universe could possibly be more chicken than a chicken??